The roster:
Major Thomas B McGuire Jr.
Major Jack Rittmayer
Captain Edwin Weaver
Lt Douglas Thropp.
Elements were McGuire Weaver and Rittmayer Thropp.
Before the engagement, Rittmayer reported engine trouble and lagged back, starting to catch up when the first plane was spotted. Thropp has accused Rittmayer of faking the engine trouble.
First, the Japanese plane first spotted was flown by a pilot named Sugimoto, and flew directly toward and under the group.
It did not turn immediately and attack, but continued away.
Weaver wanted to drop tanks and go get it, but McGuire ordered them to hold tanks and continue.
The second Japanese pilot, Fukuda, was landing, but saw Sugimoto might be in trouble, and it is Fukuda that made the attack.
Fukuda saddled up on Weaver, and Weaver called out for help. McGuire was pulling around for the shot, and his plane shuddered, snap rolled, and spun in. Weaver said he heard the engines on McGuire's plane throttle back and then throttle up. McGuire's plane was not struck by enemy fire according to Weaver, who was the only surviving pilot close to McGuire.
Sugimoto returned to the fight, and shot up Thropp's plane, damaging the turbocharger on one side. Thropp egressed.
Fukuda made a head on pass at Rittmayer, and evidently killed Rittmayer with several shots to the cockpit. Fukuda says he saw what appeared to be a scarlet scarf on the pilot, Rittmayer wore no scarf, it is believed he was hit in the neck and possibly the head and killed outright. His plane crashed and exploded inthe jungle near a village, not far from where McGuire went down.
Rittmayer was seen to have scored hits on Sugimoto, and Weaver thought he hit Sugimoto as well. Sugimoto crashed in the jungle and is believe to have been killed by Philipino guerillas. He died of at least six gunshot wounds to the chest.
Fukuda landed at his base.
Weaver and Thropp became seperated, Thropp was very angry that Weaver did not find him and join up for the flight home. The CO, Mac MacDonald was very angry upon being told that both McGuire and Rittmayer "were down and burning", and demanded to "know what the Hell happened".
Weaver's account of the fight is generally accepted as what happened, and most of what Fukuda says agrees with it. Thropp disagrees, and takes exception to Weaver's report. However, most evidence supports Weaver's account.
The Philipinos recovered McGuire's body, and hid it from the Japanese, he was buried on a farm near the crash site. A subsequent autopsy was performed when his remains were recovered. He was indentified by his class ring. There was no evidence of gunshot wounds. McGuire was killed by massive head trauma and traumatic amputation of both arms. The head wound was not consistent with a gunshot wound.
From Weaver's account, and eyewitness accounts from Philipinos who saw the crash, along with what is known about McGuire, it is believed that McGuire simply chopped the throttle on both engines, or one, to sharply increase his turn, and when the plane shuddered and reached the stall point, he advanced the throttles and only one engine responded. Upon discussing what is known and eyewitness accounts with veteran P-38 pilots, all with considerable combat time, it is believed that one engine failed to respond, and the assymetric application of power caused the plane to snap roll inverted, with less than 1500 feet to recover, McGuire never had a chance. Every P-38 pilot involved said the same thing. The only way you snap roll a P-38 inverted like that is assymetric power.
The actual crash site has been located, and pieces of the plane identified. There was not enough of the plane left to determine whether structural failure due to combat damage or overstress caused the crash. It crashed into a creekbed in a ravine at around 300 MPH. However, the project was halted in September of 2001, possibly forever. The former Air Force fighter pilot who was running the show has been heavily involved with private contract flight for the military operations. He is not likely to have any free time to devote to the project in the foreseeable future. Also, with the delay, any funding that was in place is now no longer available.
McGuire was not nearly so greedy as you might think. He actually extended his tour because he felt he could not leave his men and his unit voluntarily. He wanted badly to go home, he'd barely gotten to know his wife, and missed her terribly. He felt the only way for him to go home he could accept was if he were to beat Bong's score and be forced to go home. He had been grounded because they did not want him to beat Bong before Bong finished all of his bond and publicity tours.
Oh, he pretty much did make the rules. It was McGuire who wrote the fighter doctrine of the theater, and in fact he wrote the hand book given to the new pilots when they arrived.
